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Lawmakers have tried to change tax rebate law before but failed

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:32:48 GMT

A plan by state lawmakers to change the way a nearly four-decade old tax rebate law works is not their first attempt to circumvent the will of the voters, according to the former head of the group responsible for the law.Chapter 62F of the General Laws, passed in 1986 through a ballot initiative, was all but forgotten until it was suddenly triggered last year and the state was required to send taxpayers about $3 billion of their money back.House lawmakers, in approving their over $56 billion spending plan for fiscal year 2024, have proposed changing the law so that if it ever again forces rebates on lawmakers, that any money paid out will be untethered from a taxpayer’s income or tax burden.“This déjà vu current effort by the usual suspects to subvert (Citizens for Limited Taxation’s) tax cap law is not their first attempt and they failed the first time around in 1987 when attempting to thwart the voters’ 1986 decision,” Chip Ford, the former Executive Director of the group behind t...

Cape Cod white shark detections hit record-high again last year: Here’s the top hotspots and busiest months for shark activity

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:32:48 GMT

Great white shark activity again ramped up along the Cape last year, as apex predator detections hit an all-time high for the seventh straight year with researchers tagging more sharks in the region every summer and fall.The total number of shark detections approached 200,000 for the first time last year, according to the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy tagging tracker, which was recently updated with 2022 data. The detection data comes from acoustic receivers, which record the presence of white sharks that have been tagged with transmitters.The count of 193,475 shark detections in 2022 was a record-high for the seventh straight year in the Conservancy’s White Shark Logbook. The previous all-time high from 2021 was 169,938 detections. The Logbook has detection data from as far back as 2010.As researchers with the Conservancy and Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries keep tagging white sharks each year, the shark detection data is climbing. Last year’s count of 133 ...

Orioles reset: The Braves series was just an appetizer. Baltimore’s schedule is about to get much harder. | ANALYSIS

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:32:48 GMT

Was watching the Orioles this weekend a little more stressful than usual?Facing the best team in the National League, with Cy Young-caliber pitchers on the mound and 40,000 fans in the stands, the Orioles and Atlanta Braves battled in three games that were one-run affairs in the seventh inning, with the final two coming down to the wire on national television.It’s unusual for an interleague series to feel the way the Orioles’ did this weekend in Atlanta. But after a stretch of games against largely cellar-dwellers, combined with the yearning from the fan base to be thought of as a contender, the three games against the Braves offered an early taste for what the rest of the season could look like for the Orioles, whose remaining schedule is among the toughest in the major leagues.Buckle up. If this weekend was any indication, there are a lot more games like those on the way.“There’s no breaks,” manager Brandon Hyde said about his club’s upcoming sc...

State lawmakers to debate new safety watchdog for MBTA

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:32:48 GMT

Moving safety oversight of the MBTA out of the Department of Public Utilities should be an immediate priority, says one Massachusetts lawmaker, who is pushing to create an independent commission that would take over this watchdog role.A bill establishing this new agency, filed by state Sen. Michael Barrett, will be considered at a Monday Joint Committee on Transportation hearing, the first step in what he hopes will be a successful legislative push.“I don’t think the federal government will permit us to rest with the status quo,” Barrett said. “We’ve got to do something. The T is not getting any safer. I think it’s high time we acted.”The Federal Transit Administration issued a scathing critique of DPU’s hands-off approach to transportation safety oversight and low staffing levels in that division, in the August 2022 report that followed its months-long investigation of the MBTA’s subway system.Barrett said his proposed legislation is responsive to that criticism, particularly the c...

US to propose new rules for airline cancellations, delays

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:32:48 GMT

The Biden administration is working on new regulations that would require airlines to compensate passengers and cover their meals and hotel rooms if they are stranded for reasons within the airline’s control.The White House said President Joe Biden and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg would announce the start of the rulemaking process Monday.The rulemaking pledge continues a push by the Democratic administration to require airlines to improve customer service, and it comes just weeks before the start of the peak summer travel season. The aim of the rules would be, for the first time, to require airlines to pay compensation beyond a ticket refund and to cover expenses that consumers incur, including rebooking on another flight, if the airline causes a cancellation or significant delay.“When an airline causes a flight cancellation or delay, passengers should not foot the bill,” Buttigieg said in a statement. Currently, when an airline cancels a flight for any reason, cons...

‘Risk it all’: Migrant surge as US prepares for Title 42 end

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:32:48 GMT

BROWNSVILLE, Texas (AP) — Under a set of white tents at the U.S.-Mexico border in Brownsville, Texas, dozens of Venezuelan men waited. Some sat on curbs and others leaned on metal barricades. When the gates eventually opened, the long line of men filed slowly up the pedestrian pathway to the bridge and across the Rio Grande River to Mexico.In the past few weeks, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials have been facilitating these expulsions three times a day as roughly 30,000 migrants, mostly from Venezuela, have entered the U.S. in this region since mid-April. That’s compared with 1,700 migrants Border Patrol agents encountered in the first two weeks of April.In the other end of the state, in El Paso, officials are dealing with another surge of migrants and worry that thousands more are waiting to cross.All this comes as the U.S. is preparing for the end of a policy linked to the coronavirus pandemic that allowed it to quickly expel many migrants, and it spotlights conce...

Florida Panthers down Maple Leafs for 3-0 series lead

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:32:48 GMT

John Tavares stood in the middle of a sombre locker room trying to explain another loss where Toronto’s stars – himself included – were unable to make a difference.Mitch Marner was up next. Auston Matthews followed right after.There wasn’t any anger or defiance from a trio that hasn’t been nearly good enough in the Maple Leafs’ second-round playoff series.Now they have no margin for error. And a steep, near-impossible climb.Sam Reinhart scored at 3:02 of overtime Sunday as the Florida Panthers defeated Toronto 3-2 to take a commanding 3-0 lead and push the Leafs to the brink of elimination.“Tight hockey game,” Tavares said. “Got to find a way to capitalize a little more. They’re defending very tight in and around their net. We just didn’t come out on the right side of it and make the play needed to get us the result.”“It sucks,” Marner added later. “But gotta forget about it quickly, be pissed off. Now it’s do or die.”Tavares, Marner, Matthe...

Macron leads ceremony marking end of WWII in Europe

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:32:48 GMT

PARIS (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron led the traditional ceremony on Paris’ Champs-Elysees Monday commemorating the day that marked the end of World War II in Europe in 1945.Flanked by Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, Macron laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier under the Arc de Triomphe monument. A brass band played the Marseillaise.To limit disruptions amid ongoing opposition to Macron and his contested pension reforms, police banned gatherings around the area of the ceremony in the French capital, and in Lyon where the president will travel later in the day. Authorities are being vigilant that a “casserolade ” or the loud banging of pots and pans in protest will not distract from the memorial ceremonies.In Lyon, Macron is paying tribute to the French Resistance movement and one of its leaders, Jean Moulin. Macron is visiting Montluc prison, where Moulin was detained and tortured by the Gestapo. The Associated Press

Gordon Lightfoot Square? Idea floated to rename Toronto landmark after late singer

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:32:48 GMT

A week after the death of Gordon Lightfoot, an idea is being floated to rename Yonge-Dundas Square in his honour.“I’d like to see the great Gordon Lightfoot memorialized in the city, and I think there is nothing better than the square at the corner of Yonge and Dundas,” said local restaurateur Arron Barberian.Barberian, and his father before him, has been cooking steaks since 1959 at Barberian’s Steak House, located just a stone’s throw away from Yonge-Dundas Square.Barberian is the former head of the local BIA and played a considerable role in creating the square as we now know it. He thinks the time is right to name it after Lightfoot.“He’s the right person. He was integral in creating this neighbourhood as the entertainment and music capital of the city,” added Barberian. “I think it’s an appropriate way to honour that man.”RELATED: Where is Toronto in the renaming process of Dundas across the city?Barberian wrote ...

GOP threatens Blinken contempt charge over Afghanistan docs

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:32:48 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee has threatened to hold Secretary of State Antony Blinken in contempt of Congress if the State Department does not turn over classified cables related to the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, pledged in a letter Friday — obtained by The Associated Press — to escalate the ongoing battle with the State Department over a so-called dissent cable written by diplomats at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul shortly before the August 2021 withdrawal. The new deadline for the State Department to respond is Thursday. The threat is the latest in an already unprecedented effort by McCaul to force the release of sensitive documents to Congress, setting up what could become a constitutional showdown between House Republicans and the Biden administration on the ability of the legislative branch to conduct oversight. The July 2021 communication in question reportedly warned Blinken about the potential f...